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Home / Thoughts / Other's Thoughts / Sophie's Thoughts / I’m not very good at titles

I’m not very good at titles

Written by Sophie on Monday, May 22, 2006

I’ve been struggling with a lot of things lately.  As you read at the various BIID websites us transabled people are more than capable of leading “normal” successful lives.  Most of my interests don’t really depend on being AB.  I have always been “physically challenged”, I never played any sport or anything like that, so most of my interests haven’t been drastically affected by my transabledness.

My one love is Rock ‘n’ Roll Dancing.  The 50s style of dancing, the sort of dancing you see on Grease but way better.  I had been dancing for approximately 6 or 7 years when I first discovered my SCI needs were legitimate.  As I’ve said before now I used to live in a small town.  I learnt as much as I could in RnR.  Unfortunately I couldn’t find a partner to consider competing seriously with.  Most of the people my age who did RnR had well connected parents who arranged everything for their kids.  The kids never have to worry about a partner, they got pretty, elaborate dresses, expensive shoes, you name it they have it.  To make matters worse, most of these kids did not really appreciate what their parents were doing for them. 

This was always a sore spot for me.  My parents did encourage me, but I was pretty much on my own.  My mum made me an RnR dress for my birthday one year and I was lucky enough to get that.  I got to the point at RnR where I was teaching the intermediate (difficulty level not the age group) class on a weekly basis.  I felt so good standing in the middle of the room calling instructions with my stereo remote and headset microphone.  When I wasn’t teaching I was coaching members with moves they had learnt but were having problems with.  Most of these people were three times older than me.  A 17 year old tutor can be a rare thing.  But then I can remember once one of the head tutors used me as an example of “bigger women” being able to move better.  Sure being referred to as a good dancer would have made me feel good, but being referred to as a big woman hit me harder.

What has this long story got to do with my problems?  I made the mistake of going to my club’s new home page and reading some of the old newsletters.  There were articles in these newsletters about the NZ Amateur Senior National Rock ‘n’ Roll Competition, which is held every year.  It had long been a dream of mine to compete in senior nationals.  I was overwhelmed with desires of wanting to do RnR.  The thought of going to a hop, listening to the music, knowing exactly where you start dancing.  The dresses.  The Fun.  I know that it is too risky going to RnR now that I live a double life.  The city I live in now is only an hour away, who’s to say one of my RnR friends saw me wheeling round?  Besides that how can I possibly want to go to RnR?  I had been on the way to quitting before I even started wheeling.  I didn’t have a dance partner.  A lady had recently upset me (I’d gone out of my way to make sure she got to dance in club champs) saying that our substandard performance was all my fault.  Heck, I wasn’t even going to dance in club champs, I only went in because she said she really wanted to.  We didn’t do very well because she spent most of our practise times complaining about me.  She literally gave me a headache.  Even if you didn’t take the issues of me not being able to learn anything into account, I was starting to have serious problems with my feet when I left RnR.  I had been working in a factory.  This involved standing in gumboots on a concrete floor for 8-12 hours.  I already had flat feet and now I can’t stand for longer than 15 mins without my feet swelling up, going bright red, then deathly white.  The pain is excruciating and I was starting to have problems getting through a practice night at RnR without my feet getting unbearably painful.  The only way I could continue was if I got new shoes, but then they cost $170 and I didn’t have that sort of money.  Not to mention the bad experience I’d had with the NZ representatives in the past, but that’s a different story.

Despite all these issues I still really care about Rock n Roll.  I guess there are many reasons for that too.  RnR was something I could do without having to worry about being fit.  It was a well known fact that bigger woman are better dancers in terms of rhythm etc.  RnR was also one of the few things my mum took an active role in supporting me in.  Like I said earlier my mum made my RnR dress which got me some “best dressed” prizes at local and regional competitions.  My mum went to many of these competitions to cheer me on, and once dad even came and spent his time “judging” all the competitors guessing who was going to win.

This is all so confusing.  I know without a doubt that I need to have an SCI, but I’m not there yet.  I’m only able to wheel part-time at the moment and I’m not getting as much out of that as I’d like.  As Sean has said in the past “pretending” in my wheelchair makes me acutely aware of what is just out of my grasp.  It’s painful even to think about it.  But then to cut wheelchairs and pretending completely out of my life, that is something just as painful.  All I can do is make the best of my life and hope that one day I get my SCI. 

But then things like this Rock ‘n’ Roll thing come up and I wonder “should I even be thinking about wanting to dance?  Am I a terrible person to want this?”  A lot of the RnR clubs in NZ are not “New People Friendly”, and the one that is in this city is absolutely terrible.  I went once, even phoned people beforehand to check details, they knew I was coming and knew I could already RnR.  I turned up and no one even spoke to me.  I left halfway through in tears and hadn’t gotten one dance.  To be honest I had been looking forward to the chance of dancing with someone new.  If these are the painful experiences I associate with RnR how can I possible think about wanting to do it? 

Can anyone ever be truly content with the decisions they make in life?  If I had stayed in my home town, and hadn’t discovered my transabledness was something that other people went through, would I have been better off?  Would I have a partner now and be working towards Senior Nationals?  The common sense part of me tells me “Sophie, you’d been in that scene for six years and you hadn’t made one step towards any of that.  What are your chances of any of that happening in the space of six months?”  I don’t regret my decision to pretend full time.  The emotional pain I’d go through if I’d ignored it would have been much worse.  But how do I cut off these ties to my old life?  How can I be even tied down to such things when they were already giving me such grief before I even considered pretending in wheelchairs?  Am I better off dead than trying to wade through life without an SCI?